Social Network Traffic Analysis - 37 Sites Compared

October 14, 2008

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Social Network traffic has seen some interesting trends as of late. There is no doubt that social networks are here to stay, and will only continue to become more mainstream. However, not all sites are seeing booming traffic, in fact some seem to be dieing.

Below you will find 37 sites, compared, with their traffic estimates over the last 12 months via Google Trends for Websites.

Google is by no means completely accurate, but like most tools that estimate traffic you need to look at trends and not exact figures. Googles explanation of how they determine these results is below.

Google Trends provides insights into broad search patterns. Please keep in mind that several approximations are used when computing these results. All traffic statistics are estimates.

3 Interesting Social Network Traffic Analysis Takeaways:

  • There seems to be a decline in social traffic for a multitude of sites since September
  • Twitter and Plurk are seeing explosive increases while Pownce and Identi.ca are falling.
  • Facebook, Flickr, Hi5, Linkedin, Mixx and Yelp to name a few are all seeing large surges of increased traffic over the last year.

badoo.png

bebo.png

digg.png

facebook.png

fark.png

flickr.png

flixster.png

friendster.png

gather.png

habbo.png

hi5.png

i-am-bored.png

identica.png

indianpad.png

lastfm.png

linkedin.png

livejournal.png

meetup.png

metafilter.png

mixx.png

myspace.png

netlog.png

newsvine.png

plaxo.png

plurk.png

pownce.png

propeller.png

reddit.png

reunion.png

shoutwire.png

stumbleupon.png

teamsugar.png

tribe.png

twitter1.png

wayn.png

xanga.png

yelp.png

If you enjoyed this post make sure you check out my Social Network Geographics post as well for more insightful data.

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Posted by Brian Chappell | Filed Under Social Media News, Blog, Social Networking 

Comments

12 Responses to “Social Network Traffic Analysis - 37 Sites Compared”

  1. Adam Covati on October 14th, 2008 1:10 pm

    thanks for doing the legwork on this one. It’s good to see that we are still seeing growth on some of the more popular social sites. It’s not too shocking that we are seeing some failing, only so many can succeed.

  2. Brett Tilford on October 14th, 2008 3:06 pm

    great post Brian. Very interesting to see how these sites are faring. I was surprised to see how few people twitter has, I expect that to continue to increase.

    Brett Tilford’s last blog post..Experience a Nectar Tasting

  3. Arnie K on October 16th, 2008 11:40 am

    Excellent work! Some real surprises here too. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

  4. Three Stone Media on October 16th, 2008 11:53 am

    I too would like to thank you for the effort put in to gathing the data for this post. Of interest to me was the relative size, in the latest time period, of each site. Some are truly operating in a different stratosphere than others. I’m a big Mixx fan, and was surprised to see how far it has to go to really compete at the next level.

    Three Stone Media’s last blog post..Does the Financial Meltdown Impact Your SEO Plans?

  5. Brian Chappell on October 16th, 2008 1:15 pm

    @Arnie @3stone @ Brett @ Adam

    Thanks for the kind words.

    Another site I forgot to include on the list is Tumblr.com

    It has seen huge growth over the last year.

    http://trends.google.com/websites?q=tumblr.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

  6. Foot In Mouth on October 16th, 2008 2:35 pm

    I participate in just 1 or 2 of these social networks, do you think that it is wise/possible to participate in all of these networks, or would there be an average number of networks I might participate in…?

    Foot In Mouth’s last blog post..Pita: Food of the Gawds

  7. Brian Chappell on October 17th, 2008 4:16 pm

    @Foot

    I would keep it small at first. Secure your username in any new ones you see pop up but really spend your time in only a few, otherwise you will b/c overwhelmed.

  8. Wpromote on October 17th, 2008 5:42 pm

    Thanks for posting this, it’s interesting to see what’s happening on all these networks.

  9. Andrew on October 18th, 2008 3:50 am

    Looks like FaceBook is still enormous, but Twitter is growing extremely fast. I haven’t really had the time to register and try it out, but it seems everyone around me twitters :)
    Andrew’s last blog post..New Squidoo modules

  10. International SEO on October 18th, 2008 9:22 am

    Nice comparison!

    I’m curious to know more about niche social networks like Sphinn and others. I might have to do the comparison ;) Not all niche social networks really survive the concept, and only a few selected are really creating deep roots in their respective communities.

    Cheers,

    Augusto

    International SEO’s last blog post..Need to Block & Exclude Categories in Wordpress? Here is the Solution

  11. MetaRocket SEO on October 20th, 2008 12:15 pm

    Thanks…this is a great resource. I’ve been trying to convince my clients that they need to create a social media presence for their service or product.

    Hopefully, being able to show them actual social media numbers will help persuade them.

  12. Matt Inertia on October 28th, 2008 4:35 am

    Check out linkedin! Not surprising really as linked-in was the first (i may be wrong on that?) work orientated SM site.

    I still dont get the twitter thing tho.???

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